First Monday, an online, peer-reviewed journal, published the article – The Augmented Social Network: building identity and trust into the next-generation Internet by Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster.
The authors describe the future of the internet as an evolution from online experimentation and fads to stabilizing trends creating reliability, trust, even dependence. They view social linkages as far more than a passing phenomenon. They predict the ability of citizens to form relationships and self-organize around shared interests in communities of practice in order to better engage in online citizenship.
They propose an Augmented Social Network (ASN) model that facilitates connections between online communities and even builds into Internet architecture the role identity brokers could play. The authors note several elements of an ASN including:
Persistent Identity. Enabling individuals online to maintain a persistent identity as they move between different Internet communities, and to have personal control over that identity. This identity should be capable of reflecting an endless variety of interests, needs, desires, and relationships.
Interoperability Between Online Communities. People should be able to cross easily between online communities under narrowly defined circumstances, just as in life we can move from one social network to another.
Brokered Relationships. Using databased information, online brokers (both automated and "live") should be able to facilitate the introduction between people who share affinities and/or complementary capabilities and are seeking to make connections. Such a system of brokered relationships should also enable people to find other individuals, information or media that is of interest to them, through the recommendations of trusted third parties.
The surprising thing is that this abstract was published back in July, 2003. Only 5 years later, and here we are.
My Facebook tells me I should add you as a friend. Why? It knows who we share in common. Let me search you and verify your established online presence. Now I can add you to my Plaxo, LinkedIn and twitter contacts. This means I get to find out who you're connected to, see your work history, and probably hear what you ate for breakfast today via tweet.
Because building community is essential for the Church, we can capitalize on social networking. In fact, isn't one of our primary goals to seek out those in need of spiritual hope and initiate relationship with them? Since we know the Good News is most commonly transmitted person-to-person, it's not hard to see how the social web provides a unique new forum for sharing our faith.
The relational trust individuals share paves the way for those with spiritual hope, healing and health to link with those they find in their circle of trusted others. Equally importantly, it allows buildable bridges / connections with those a degree or more away. Quite obviously, we can not try to impose our beliefs on a whole society, but individually we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ, communicating with people of other faiths (or no faith) via the linkages we have online.
While some criticize the masks people wear online (persistent pseuds), view online communications as "not real" or reflect on the fragilty of social networking (all important considerations by the way) many Christians are engaging in conversations, networking and even collaborating with individuals they might never get a chance to communicate with face-to-face. I say it's an opportunity. What's your take on online social networking?
Sorry about the comments section being down all day – was in the middle of the WP 2.5.1 upgrade. Got the emails & chats.
Cynthia,
I think that there is a strange disconnect between the way we live our lives in the real world versus online. In reality we seem to be growing farther apart (relationally and geographically), while online we are growing closer together (relationally and in terms of ease of connection).
So, I don’t think that the social web is a waste of time, but for many people it may seem a bit surreal.
I’m not the same on myspace as I am on facebook because my friends are different (probably 60% overlap). For those of us who grew up with this technology the adaptation is fairly natural. For those who are just now learning, I think that the adoption process will be slow.
In short, the technology is great. MySpace is not the devil. But it’s going to be a long time until the technology becomes pervasive and the church feels comfortable using it. Sometimes its hard for us to remember that we’re still early adopters.
I think your assessment is right on the button. Our firm has more or less by necessity begun engaging in more Web 2.0/Social Networking consulting with the church and missions organizations. We began our business on the premise of doing a lot of Podcast consulting several years back and as the church has realized the power of Social Networking, we also realized that power and are helping the church leverage that in order to deepen existing relationships and foster new ones.
I have personally noticed here of late that, because I am keeping my “status” updated 24/7 that this is creating new links and commonalities with my “online friends”. For instance wall comments left for me on my Facebook are largely driven by my status updates. Thanks to hellotxt.com, I can update almost all of my accounts with one swipe. Bottom line, this ability to update and really become seamless across many networks is probably getting very close, and will probably be a great benefit to everyone involved in online community.
I appreciate your thoughts and assessments Cynthia. Keep up the excellent work.
I have personally found social networking sites as effective tools in connecting with people in my own church, community and like-minded people all over the nation and even internationally. Really, how different is this than letters written between parties? My wife and I got to know each other through snail mail. Indeed, there are problems, but the benefits are real.
Another point is that the younger set is already deep in this stuff. If we do not use it, we might as well give up on our kids!
Ryan – Dallas!
Jarrod – I’ll check out hellotxt.com – microblogging status updates is taking off.
Hi Rich – the iGeneration sees the “connected” world as normative. The ability to network, socialize, interact & engage is embedded in their perception of how the world works, at least on this side of the Digital Divide. Most youth are all already spending time there daily, as you’ve said.
As Christian leaders, we don’t have to manipulate or control social networking. All we have to do, is avoid rejecting “their world” and be open to the electronic interaction without minimizing it’s very significant impact on the next generation.
Loved your input at Church 2.0 and all that Sunridge is doing.
Great post Cynthia, I particularly like your point about the nature of church involving community. Community is our business in a way, and consequently you would think migrating to using online community tools would be easier.. but the key difference is that church mostly prefers face to face contact within a geographically defined space (parish, regional mission field and so on). Now we are facing the possibility that you never physically meet someone and the community may well be spread across the world.
So this requires some fundamental shifts in thinking for the church.. here is praying that we as the church don’t bunker down but embrace the dialog going forward.
I recently wrote a piece that explores some of this called ‘Christian Mission to a Virtual World’ that can be downloaded at: http://brownblog.info/?p=381
The bottom line is that we need to use all the tools available to us for the purpose of ministering to each other.
With that said; some would considered me as one who is slow to engage in some of the social networking sites. But then again, I have been using them since I first connected to the online world at 300 baud. They were called bulletin boards back then, or so I recall. The only difference is that there are now more people online, better tools to connect us together, and let’s not forget how much the use of multimedia has helped us engage.
I do share Ryan’s concern about the disconnect between our live and virtual lives.